June 6, 2014

Today was a pretty lazy and unproductive day. Looking back on it, it seemed to kind of just pass by without much fanfare. I would like to say I'm forgetting about something but at the moment nothing is coming to mind. All I can remember is watching Ted, along with recorded TV stuff and YouTube videos. Kind of a waste of a day.

I worked tonight at the theater for the first time in awhile. It felt kind of weird when I first walked in. I spent my night reading from three books. I also watched The Edge Of Tomorrow. It had the same basic idea of the story it is based on but it was pretty much different all around. But they made it work. I liked it. I wasn't a big fan of the original ending and thankfully they changed it for the movie. And although I like happy endings, and they gave it a happy ending, I think it should have ended on a sadder note. Spoilers here. In the book, the main character has to kill the girl to get out of the loop. Or kill her in self defense because she tries to kill him to stop the loop. In the movie, that isn't how the loop works, but they both end up dying in a last-ditch effort to stop the loop. And this was okay with me because the both died, not leaving one person alive to be depressed and ruminate over all the decisions they could have made differently. And they were heroic deaths, which don't make things any better in real life, but in a movie they are a good thing. Then the movie keeps going instead of ending with their last heroic action, taking out the enemy. Tom Cruise wakes up again, and the enemy vanquished, but it as if nothing ever happened. Happy, yes, because they both live, which is what I wanted in the book, but the movie did it in such a way that I think both of them sacrificing themselves to save humanity would have made a better ending than the way they chose to end things.

Against my better judgment I watched a thirty minute chunk of The Fault In Our Stars and then the ending. I was on the verge of crying the entire time and tears did leak out at least twice. It is such an overwhelmingly emotional story. I loved the book even though it made me cry more times than I can count. I know John Green really liked the movie and from what I saw they did a really good job of faithfully adapting it. The casting was also spot-on, at least based on my vague recollection of the characters. But it is definitely not a movie I will be going to watch in the theater. I'm not a fan of crying in public.

June 5, 2014

Another exciting day in the life of me. I read, watched movies, and clicked around the internet for most of the day. I started the movie watching with Pacific Rim while looking up stuff about grad school and careers in Library Science. The cable and internet crapped out for awhile in the middle of the movie so I read more of The Fellowship of the Ring until everything started working again. I thought I had seen all of Pacific Rim while it was in theaters but apparently I watched everything but the ending. I liked it. I would have preferred a different ending, if only slightly happier, but other than that, it was a good movie. At least in terms of visual effects. The story was just alright.

The second movie I watched was City Of Ember. I'm fairly certain I watched that movie awhile ago but I was tempted to watch it again. Still a good movie. I liked the costume design and the story was interesting..

The third movie was Warm Bodies. While we had it at the theater I managed to see the vast majority of the movie. At least it all seemed pretty familiar. As with City Of Ember, it is still a good movie. My favorite thing about the movie is the humor. And the fact that it was an interesting twist on a romantic comedy. The idea that most of the zombies could be cured made me wonder about the psychological repercussions on the living people who killed zombies before they knew there was a cure. Especially if those zombies were their loved ones. I imagine they would try to justify it by saying the zombies had technically been dead when they killed them again, but I still think it would be hard to come to terms with.

I didn't pay much attention to it at the time but all three movies kind of have the same basic theme. The last of humanity fighting for its survival. Pacific Rim wasn't quite as far along in terms of population lost, but they were trying to prevent getting to that point. So I'm counting it.

I got my Warby Parker in-home trial glasses frames today. Three are fairly similar and are a little larger than my current frames, one is more similar in size, and the last pair is more round. I immediately discarded those as an option because they were set too close together and looked funny. Now I need to repeatedly try on the remaining four until I come to a decision. Then, when I finally go get my eyes checked, I can order the pair I want.

Tonight was Chipotle night and after dinner I went for an hour-long visit with the new volunteer kid. There was a lot of silence. I asked a bunch of random questions about everything I could think of but couldn't ever really get much of a conversation started. I learned that he hasn't seen his sister since the court hearing and that he has been spending his time working and playing videos games and being bored. He also said that he is supposed to go to Hawaii with his grandparents.

I had an orange today, for the first time in a long time. I'm trying to increase the citric acid in my diet. It turns out oranges are still a pain in the ass to peel but they are also still delicious.

It is almost one o'clock in the morning but I'm not really tired yet so I started watching Jack The Giant Slayer. A movie I have not seen any of but was always curious. It has the same actor as the main zombie in Warm Bodies, something I had forgotten. I was interested in how they would do the giants and I'm not sure how I feel about it. They went full, not realistic, CGI. Not necessarily bad but different. I don't think I'll make it through the whole movie tonight but I've made a decent start.

June 4, 2014

Today we went out to the kindergarten teacher's house for a going-away lunch for the fourth grade teacher. We went out a little early with my cutout and I set it up right inside the door to greet everyone as they walked in. It got some pretty good responses. The kindergarten teacher and her husband recently finished remodeling their house and it looks really nice. It is like the perfect mix of rustic and new. I really liked it. As for the lunch, there was a really good turnout, which I was glad to see. And, there were plenty of food options for me so that was nice. I sat with the group out on the patio and it was a bit overcast with a small breeze, making it very comfortable and relaxing. I don't sit outside often enough and I should change that. There was a brief sad moment when the fourth grade teacher was talking but overall it was a happy time.

I didn't really do much else with the rest of my day. I got a decent amount of sleep last night but I was exhausted after lunch. I watched YouTube videos and added a bit more to my cross stitch but that was about it. And the same can be said for the rest of my night after dinner. I felt like playing a video game but my overwhelming sleepy feeling was too distracting. And yet here I am, still awake at one o'clock in the morning. I already miss my school sleep schedule.

June 3, 2014

I continued working on my cross stitch today. I didn't get very far. The metallic string is just such a pain. But I'm further than I was yesterday so I'm getting there. I need to suck it up and finish it so I can start on one of my other patterns.

I also continued reading The Fellowship of the Ring. I've made it into the second chapter. It has been nice having two weeks off but I am kind of looking forward to going back to the theater so I can get in some quality reading time. I will probably feel differently after a week or so but at the moment I am looking forward to it.

My friend texted me and then eventually called me to tell me about the accident he had today. It involved a post hole digger and his head. The post hole digger won. He said it hurt when it hit him and he could feel a bump but didn't think anything of it and started to walk away. That is when his partner on the job, along with the owner of the house and her daughter, noticed what my friend hadn't. He put his hand up to the back of his neck and when he brought it down it was covered in blood. Then he leaned forward and it all ran down his face. He walked into urgent care with his bloody shirt and a bag of ice on his head, a bloody face, a bloody undershirt, and told the receptionist he might need stitches. He also apologized to the lady he kind of cut in front of, who was their to get shots for her kids. It ended up taking nine stitches and seven staples to close the gash in my friends head, that apparently went all the way to the bone. He showed me pictures and I was not envious. I am glad I decided not to get into a fight with a post hole digger today.

Tonight I got to hang out with my in-town friend. It has been awhile since we've gotten to hang out but we made it in just under the three month mark, which isn't bad. After I picked her up out first stop was to get slushies at the gas station. We ran into the first grade teacher who just retired and I talked with her for a little while. School isn't going to be the same without her next year. And I'm going to have to end her a thank you if I get into grad school because she was also my reading tutor. While paying for the slushies I also took the opportunity to get my Powerball tickets so I wouldn't have to come back.

When we got back to my friend's house we watched Dexter. It took a little bit to remember which episode we had left off on because it has been awhile since we had the chance to watch the show. I thought we had one episode left in the sixth season but we skipped along through that one and I remembered everything until the very end. We then made it four episodes into season seven. It is taking us forever to get through the show but we're getting there, slowly but surely. After we finished the last episode for the night we talked about random stuff, including school and jobs, and then called it a night.

It is now about one o'clock in the morning and I am going to go to bed. Tomorrow I'm going to a lunch of the fourth grade teacher who is leaving. The same fourth grade teacher who had so much fun moving my cutout all over the building. So I'm going to take my cutout to the lunch, maybe try and scare her one last time.

June 2, 2014

Somehow I forgot to mention the dog fight I broke up last night between Tanner and Beau. As always, it was started by Tanner because he is kind of a dick, and then Beau has to fight back. It was fairly short-lived but both of them ended up with some chunks out of them and Tanner was totally covered in blood. I got out there right after it started and grabbed a chair to wedge between them. The back door was open and I almost got Tanner outside but he got around me and the chair and went back at Beau. After that I gave up on the chair and thought about grabbing Tanner's collar when he took a step back from Beau, but then he dove in again, and I was pissed and annoyed, so I grabbed the scruff of his neck and another handful on his back and then dragged and pushed him out of the back door.

I woke up early-ish this morning so I could call about the jury duty thing. I went through the automated thing again to get to an administrator and then found out office hours don't start until nine o'clock. So I waited around for an hour and called back, only to get an answering machine. I left a message and called it good. It has to be more obvious if you're supposed to actually show up at the courthouse. I'm going with that.

I arranged for my grad school interview. It should be in a couple weeks if I don't get called in for jury duty. Or hauled off to jail for not going to jury duty. I've emailed the librarian and a couple teachers at school to see if they had interviews so I can get some insight. The program director said it is about a ninety-minute process, which sounds like a really long interview. I looked potential questions up online and all those examples made it sound similar to a job interview. I need to start reading up on current events in the field, more stuff about the school and their program, and see if I can figure out a more concrete vision of my future and why I want a degree from their university. I have struggled for years now trying to come up with a specific goal for my future and I don't want to not get into grad school because my future outlook isn't clear enough. Needless to say, I'm nervous. I really want to go to grad school, and I feel like my future depends on it, because I'm currently not going anywhere with my two barely over minimum wage jobs.

I started my Snitch cross stitch today. I'm using metallic string, which I think will look cool (hopefully) but it is also a pain in the butt to work with. The ends fray quickly and the metal part bunches a lot and gets stuck when I'm pulling it through. I have ended up wasting more string than I care to. I worked on it for quite awhile off and on but I'm only about a quarter of the way through the outline. My plan is to do the outline and the lines on the main part in a brighter gold color and then fill it all in with a more muted gold color. It is hard to tell just looking at the string but I'm hoping the two different shades of gold don't clash. When I get done with all that I can figure out how I want to do the stitches. I don't know if I'm going to do one big line with wide stitches or a couple smaller ones with narrower stitches. I'm going to have to test it out on a scrap piece of cloth.

I am quickly running out of YouTube videos to watch so I filled in my downtime with Netflix. If I wasn't already a vegetarian, Free Birds would have probably been enough to push me in that direction. I enjoyed the movie, especially the comedic bits. However, it could easily be used as pro-veg propaganda. Something I'm not against. I was a little worried in the beginning when they were showing that all the turkeys were dumb and wanted to go off with the farmer when it was time for a turkey dinner, but then they travel back to the past and we learn that all the turkeys are smart and have no interest in becoming food. I prefer that view of turkeys. I'm not going to go on a rant about killing animals because it is late and I am tired, but I will say I am happy with my decision to not eat animals.

I also watched a brief history of Joan of Arc because I only had a vague idea of her story. The history was shorter than I would have liked but I did get a better sense of who she was. And to be fair, she left home when she was sixteen and then was burned at the stake when she was nineteen, which isn't a lot of time to work with.

After that I watched the real story of Indiana Jones and the real story of James Bond. Apparently Indiana Jones wasn't necessarily based on real people, but George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg were inspired by the films they watched as kids, and those films were based on actual people. I obviously wasn't paying much attention because I can't remember their names but there was one guy who was very academic but also adventurous. He lead an expedition into a desert and ended up discovering the big red rock outcropping and found the first actual proof of dinosaur eggs, along with a bunch of bones, and it is still a popular place to find bones. He was also good with a pistol and afraid of snakes. There was another very academic guy who spent his life looking for the Holy Grail. He was then forced into joining the Nazi's because Hitler's second-in-command was obsessed with the Grail. After a period of time with no Grail, the academic guy was sent to a prison camp as a guard to punish him. It didn't take him very long before he decided to leave the SS. He wrote a letter requesting to leave and it sounded like he was pressured into saving face, not only for himself but also the SS, by committing suicide, which he did.

As for James Bond, the author of the books was heavily involved in the British Intelligence Agency so a lot of the stuff was based on actual things or had its basis in reality. Bond was thought to be a conglomeration of himself and an intelligence agent that was kind of a badass, in real life. A lot of the characters were also based on real-life people, including M who was based on his boss during his time in the intelligence field.

I've been listening to a lot of One Buck Tuner because their sound makes me nostalgic for high school. Tonight I went on a trip down memory lane by listening to Unwritten Law and Sugarcult while I worked on my cross stitch. Still good music.

I'm not sure what's on the agenda tomorrow. More of the same I imagine. Reading, watching stuff, cross stitching. I might leave the house but we'll see. If I'm not working I really only leave the house to spend money, and I like not spending money, so I try to stay home.

June 1, 2014

This morning I watched Tiger Eyes. I saw it the other day when I was renting movies and the cover caught my attention because I think it was the girl who played the little sister on The O.C., but I didn't end up renting it. Then I saw it again when I was scrolling through Netflix last night so I decided to give it a shot. It wasn't too bad. Not necessarily my kind of movie but it was decent.

After that I watched The Adventures of Tintin. Wow. The animation was crazy, the textures in particular. Almost everything had beautiful textures. There was also a shot where they showed Tintin's face really close up and you could see the peach fuzz on his face. That's just an insane eye for detail. I didn't really care about the overall story but the animation and action kept me engaged. I would definitely watch it again. The most interesting thing I got out of watching the movie was that the guy was named Tintin, not the dog. That just sounds like a dog's name, and not just because of Rin Tin Tin, although that helps.

This morning we went to look at a house that my mom is thinking about buying. It belongs to the brother of the kindergarten teacher that my mom works with. My mom has really gotten tired of the neighbors around us and has been thinking about moving for awhile. This house is about fifteen or twenty minutes outside of town and there are neighbors but they aren't right on top of you like they are in town. And from inside the house you can really only see one of them which the dogs hopefully wouldn't have too much of a problem with. There is a huge yard and off in the backyard there is a pond shared by the other houses in the area. And one of the neighbor kids has already volunteered to mow the yard for whoever moves in. For at least the next few years while I go to grad school (fingers crossed) I would be in the basement. There are three rooms down there which means I could use one as a bedroom and use another for more of an office-type room with my computer and books and music stuff. The bathroom down there is also pretty spacious which would be good for when I have kidney stones.

It's a really nice house and I think my mom really likes it. The two biggest problems I see are the distance from town and the outside maintenance. Running to the store will be more of a commitment and you'll be less likely to hop in the car to go grab one thing. But my mom will be going to town everyday for work so that won't be much of an issue. The drive is also a lot of highway and then gravel road. Both will be kind of annoying during the winter, more so probably for my small car. It's not much of a gravel road, country vehicle. As for the outside maintenance, the mowing should be covered by the neighbor kid, but kids grow up and at some point another solution will have to be found. There are a few other smaller concerns but those are the two biggest. Overall, I think my mom would be much happier. And even if this house doesn't work out I think she is going to keep looking for a new house.

Tonight my sister came over for Chinese food. I'm now such a big fan of the Chinese buffet we go to on birthdays that Chinese takeout just isn't as good. It was still good, just a little bit disappointing. After dinner I didn't have a lot going on. I watched YouTube videos and finished making the RPG sprite that looks like me. For awhile I just sat back with my eyes closed, listening to relaxing music and the sound of heavy rain outside. I also read a little bit more of The Fellowship of the Ring.

Tomorrow morning I need to wake up and call the someone about jury duty. I am technically now on-call for jury duty at the district level but I have no idea about reporting for jury duty. I am supposed to call this automated number for the next five weeks and it will tell me whether I am supposed to report or not. But, the phone message wasn't very clear. It said that I had been cleared or that I had qualified for jury duty and to refer to the information on my summons. On my summons, it tells me where to report but in the date and time fields it tells me to “Read All Instructions Carefully.” Those instructions include the date range when I am on-call but then tells me to call the automated number to receive my instructions. And those instructions refer me to the summons which refers me to the other instructions which refers me to the phone number and on and on the circle goes. My assumption is that the automated message will give me a date and time to report to the courthouse if I am actually supposed to but I want to call tomorrow to check that. And hope that I shouldn't be assuming that I need to be at the courthouse tomorrow morning.

Lastly, I finally submitted my resume and statement of objectives. I read over my statement one last time, getting rid of one sentence and changing a word. Then I called it good, saved it, and emailed it before I could give it yet another read through and edit. It's as good as it is going to get and if it doesn't go over well, I certainly tried my best. Now I need to think about the interview. My mom mentioned a couple people at school who are taking classes or have graduated from graduate and thought I should ask them if they had an interview and see how it was. And that is a brilliant idea. So after I finish this I am going to email them, and hopefully they had an interview and can give me some insight into what it will be like. Ease my mind a little and give me something to work with.

May 31, 2014

I think I made my final edits to my statement of objectives. There were a couple words that were bothering and I reworded things to make it sound better, at least in my head. My dad stopped by and we sat and talked for about a half an hour, one of the topics being my paper. He really liked it and he showed it to my step-mom and aunt and they both thought it sounded like me, so that's good. After the final edit my mom made a comment about how I mention my previous interest in other fields that eventually waned, and how that might reflect poorly on my current interest in Library Science. I was going for the idea that my interest waned because those interests were too specific, and a degree in Library Science would give me a chance to do something different every day. But now I'm going to have to read back over it for the millionth time to make sure that comes across.

I watched Knights Of Badassdom today. I liked it because there were a lot of funny moments, but it wasn't a great movie. Not that surprising considering it was filmed in 2010 and didn't get bought/released until 2013. But I might watch it again. It reminded me of Unicorn City, which I watched several months ago on Netflix. Both involved LARPing.

I also started reading The Fellowship Of The Ring but didn't make it out of the prologue. About as far as I made it the last time I started reading it. But I don't plan on stopping this time. I had a strong urge to get through that trilogy but I probably should have waited until I finished the books I'm currently in the middle of. But it seems like I'm just going to throw it into the mix now.

Tonight I watched Kickass 2. I vaguely remember the first movie and I also vaguely remember the sequel not doing very well. I think the sequel probably had more funny moments but I can see it being considered a weaker movie. The acting was decent but it could have been written better.

While I watched that, I messed around with Game Character Hub, a program I got with a Humble Bundle that allows you to make and edit RPG sprites. As long as they are humans or elves. My idea was to maybe make cross stitch patterns of people. I experimented on that idea tonight by making one of myself and I think it looks pretty good. They didn't have my hair or beard, and the glasses looked weird, but I got close and then edited it. I changed the color and erased some of the beard, used a mohawk and then added hair to it, drew on a pair of glasses, and changed the shoes a little. And I got pretty close. I'm using the head of it now as my icon on my phone. I also have a program now where I can make my own RPG and I could put myself in as a character. That would be cool. It is apparently the same program used to make To The Moon, which is a game I played last year I think, and it was really good. Like really good, and I really liked the music. So that is something I may need to look into. Add another spinning plate into the mix.

Now, it is way too late. And my throat feels like it is closing up. That is unrelated to the lateness of the hour because it has been feeling like that for several hours now. I think it is allergy related. Allergies suck balls. I am hoping that I can go to bed and wake up tomorrow feeling perfectly fine. And not worse. So I'm going to go find out.